


Gone, But Not Forgotten

by Miriel (Butterfly_Beat)



Series: Bridges [3]
Category: NCIS, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly_Beat/pseuds/Miriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at those left behind when Atlantis broke from Earth.  How do you return to a mold that no longer fits?  Darker cousin to "Glimpses of the Edge."</p><p>This is the third (and final) segment of the Gen Arc within the larger Bridges universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Miko

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this is fiction. Ergo, it is not fact. SGA, SG-1, and NCIS all belong to their pertinent owners - they're being borrowed here without intent for profit.
> 
> Potential Trigger Warnings: Part 2 - Severe family breakdown, traumatic injury; Part 4 - Suicide; Part 5 - Substance Abuse; Part 6 - Mental Illness
> 
> Many thanks to everyone who originally helped with this collection. It was originally written between 2008-2010.

It started with a knock on LTC Jacobs' door. Well, if one were being technical, it started when Captain Cushman took shrapnel and fell ten feet, but for Jacobs it always started with the knock and subsequent phone call.

"Hello?"

"Am I speaking to Lieutenant Colonel Harlan Jacobs?"

Jacobs resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and instead looked at his watch. "Yes you are; what can I do for you?"

"I am calling for a status report on Captain James Cushman." Jacobs frowned, noting an accent in her voice. Asian, definitely. Either Japanese or Korean, most likely. What the hell was some Asian national doing calling about Cushman? The man's _family_ hadn't been notified. It wasn't like the fall had been life threatening; Jacobs hadn't even bothered to pull the captain's next-of-kin information. Never mind that it had only been two hours.

"Uh, who am I talking to?" So it wasn't polite; he hadn't exactly been planning on discussing Captain Cushman's condition with anyone until the paperwork went through.

"Doctor Miko Kusanagi, I work for the Japanese Government. I have answered your question, now I would be appreciative if you answered mine. That is, of course, if the time difference hasn't terribly upset your ability to speak."

Jacobs gaped at the phone, and it was a long moment of silence before he could pull himself back together. He didn't know who the hell she _thought_ she was, but since she wasn't US brass she could damn well wait until tomorrow. He'd been off the clock for an hour, at least as far as this kind of shit went. "Well, I'm sorry, _Doctor_ Kusanagi, but you're going to have to call back in the morning. I'm not authorized to distribute information to non-military personnel regarding officers under medical supervision." So it wasn't strictly true; it wasn't like she would actually know that.

"Now wait just a minute, _Colonel_ , I happen to -" He hung up, stood up, and proceeded to leave his office for the day. After all, it wasn't like she could actually cause him any problems.

-...-...-

That night, it occurred to him that there was one explanation he hadn't considered (although it still didn't answer how she had known about the accident). Taking the direct route, he talked the on-shift nurse into letting him perform Cushman's 2200 concussion checks. Studying the sleeping serviceman, Jacobs took the seat next to the bed. "Cushman."

"Cushman! Wake up, airman! Where are you?"

Cushman sat up carefully, blinking hard. "Ugh, Sir, it's the middle of the night."

"Got it in one, airman. You're concussed; we have to make sure you're still all there. Can you tell me where you are?"

"Um, Earth. A field hospital." He rubbed at his eyes with his good hand. "Someplace in the middle east?"

"Close enough. I've got a question for you. You married?"

"No, sir. I mean, I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"Well, sir, the colonel said it wasn't binding."

"How do you have a non-binding marriage, Cushman?"

"Oh, that's easy. The colonel and Doctor McKay used to have them all the time. Got to be kind of a joke. We were never really sure who was the wife, though." He frowned contemplatively.

Jacobs rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and then stood. Maybe the concussion was worse than he'd thought; there had certainly been no spouse listed in Cushman's file - divorced, deceased, or otherwise. He'd figured that there might have been a paperwork glitch, but this sounded like the file had been right; Cushman's brain was just scrambled. "Get some sleep, Captain. I expect you back on the tarmac just as soon as the doc clears you."

"Yes, sir."

-...-...-

At 0830 on the way to the mess, Jacobs heard the sound of a chopper coming in. He frowned, and looked up; as far as he knew they didn't have anyone coming in until afternoon. It was a medevac, no surprises there; it was part and parcel with being the base attached to the largest hospital in the region. With a sigh of resignation, he made his way to the landing pad to see just what had landed on his doorstep now.

The first thing out of the chopper was a stretcher with an unconscious figure and an attendant medic; that was normal. Regrettably, so was the second stretcher bearing a body bag. What wasn't normal, was the medic who climbed out after, and then turned to offer a hand to the tiniest soldier Jacobs had ever seen.

-...-...-

The soldier, it turned out, wasn't a soldier at all. It was, in fact, Doctor Kusanagi. She was all of five feet tall, couldn't possibly weigh more than a hundred and thirty with full gear, and apparently her short hair was indicative of her temper.

It was five minutes after the chopper put down, and Colonel Jacobs was wondering why he had ever gotten out of bed that morning. Not only was the doctor demanding to see Captain Cushman, but one of the men from the chopper had wandered over and was leaning against the closest wall in a meaningful way. Upon closer inspection, Jacobs realized that it was one of the medics, and he wondered again just who the hell this Doctor Kusanagi was. "Look, Doctor. I don't know how you found out about Captain Cushman's accident. I'd say I don't care, but that's a pretty massive security breach. We'll deal with that later, though. If you want information on Cushman's medical condition you're going to have to talk to his doctors, and they're not going to be any more helpful than I've been."

"Why should it be a problem? Surely if the captain is conscious he can admit visitors, and if not then..." Miko turned away, rummaging in her duffel bag. "A-ha! You are looking for this, yes?" She held out a piece of paper.

Jacobs took it cautiously, keeping one eye on her as he skimmed the paper. 'I, James Cushman, in the event of my incapacitation, give Miko Kusanagi full discretionary authority over my health and material belongings.' _Huh._ "Forgive me, because I haven't had my coffee this morning, but I'm confused. _Are_ you Cushman's wife?"

Miko blinked owlishly. "I suppose if you wish to be technical, I am. I do not believe that we were ever officially divorced. However, that is neither here nor there."

Jacobs groaned. "Why didn't you just say so? It wouldn't be the first time the paperwork's been wrong." He sighed, and turned toward the medical complex. "This way."

-...-...-

Cushman was awake when Jacobs led Doctor Kusanagi into the room. "Sir, if this is about-" he trailed off, and Jacobs filed away the look of shock on the captain's face for future analysis. "Miko! How did you get here? Didn't you have that conference in Bangkok?"

Even Jacobs could hear the unspoken 'you shouldn't have' in the question. As 'Miko' launched into something about team members and responsibilities, Jacobs headed for the door. This was a discussion he didn't need to hear, and there was hopefully still some coffee in the mess calling his name. If he hustled, he could still get there and back to his office before his 1000 meeting. Maybe, if he mainlined enough caffeine, the morning would finally begin to make sense.

Finis


	2. Bates

As the orange line squealed to a halt at the Foggy Bottom Metro Station, Jenny Kempers resisted the urge to tap on the doors, knowing they wouldn't open any faster. She couldn't believe this was happening; she'd seen her sister this morning, and Susan had been fine. Well, not fine, but as close to it as Susan seemed to get since she'd gotten back from Antarctica.

When the doors finally opened, Jenny was out like a shot, cursing her inability to remember which end of the station the escalators were on as she sprinted the length of the platform. The police had said "car accident" and "critically injured", but they hadn't given her any details aside from the polite version of "get your ass to GW Hospital." She had spent over an hour in transit, between a breakdown on the red line and single-tracking on the orange; every minute that passed left her more and more anxious. She'd finally gotten used to having her sister around again, for the first time in ten years, and now this happened.

As Jenny allowed herself to be escorted to the surgical waiting room, she desperately wanted to believe the nurse who said "she's going to be all right, dear." Susan was all she had left at this point, even if their relationship was still closer to estranged than the blood-sisters that they were. Sitting in one of the plastic chairs, Jenny grabbed the first magazine she saw and stared at the cover, unable to bring herself to read even the headlines. Instead, she found herself thinking back to her sister's abrupt appearance four months earlier.

A month before the semester started, Susan had shown up at Jenny's hell-hole apartment with a shy smile and an offer to share a townhouse in Cleveland Park. No phone calls, no letters, no communication of any kind for six years, and then suddenly BOOM! There was Susan and her really expensive townhouse and her shiny new teaching position at AU. It had only taken Jenny half a cup of coffee to decide that free rent was free rent, and if her sister was feeling guilty and wanted to attempt belated sibling bonding in exchange for said free rent, who was she to argue?

Of course, Jenny hadn't realized that Susan was stepping down from a war zone, or she might have reconsidered. Well, it might not have been a war zone, but it was definitely something strange. For someone who claimed to have spent the last two years in Antarctica doing research on the sociological effects of micro-communities, Susan was messed up. Really messed up. When Jenny thought about it, and she found herself thinking about it far more than she wanted to, she was reminded of something one of her journalism professors had spoken about: journalists who adapted to life in a war zone and were never able to leave, to the point where they quit their jobs if their agency tried to transfer them elsewhere. Jenny was pretty sure Susan hadn't been in an active combat zone - even with her newly discovered reticence, Susan would have said something about it - but Jenny couldn't figure out what it had been. She'd tried the subtle approach, but that had gotten her nowhere. She'd tried the direct approach, but all that had gained her was a haunted look and "don't worry, Jen-jen, it's just been a few rough years. I need a little time to adjust. Don't worry about me; worry about your thesis."

Jenny still worried, and the use of her childhood nickname hadn't assuaged that concern in the slightest. She worried about her sister's mind, and she worried for her future. Even three months in, Jenny still woke in the night to find Susan walking aimlessly around the living room, flinching at shadows. To find her sister curled up on the patio, crying into the phone at three in the morning about topics Jenny was never near enough to discern, with people Susan refused to name. And every time the garbage truck came by, or helicopters flew overhead, another glass or plate went into the trash in pieces. At least as concerning, however, was what Susan didn't do. Three months into her position at American University, and she hadn't mentioned her coworkers in more than the vaguest of terms; Jenny still wasn't completely sure what it was that Susan even taught. She didn't date, didn't like going out, and the closest thing Susan had to a friend, aside from the mysterious phone calls and emails, was a student she was advising on the side - Charlie B-something or other. It was disturbing for Jenny to see her once chatty sister so withdrawn, but there wasn't much she could do about it. She was trying desperately to balance a part-time job and grad school, and didn't even have time for a social life herself.

Now, sitting in the cold waiting room as Susan fought for her life, Jenny promised herself that if her sister made it through this they were going to talk. Susan would tell her what had happened, either in Antarctica, or before - wherever it was that had damaged her so badly. Because Jenny wasn't going to lose her.

-...-...-

One hour turned into two, two into four, and when someone finally called her name it had been close to eight hours in that godawful plastic chair. "Ms. Kempers?"

She was on her feet before she was even aware of it, approaching the man standing in the doorway wearing scrubs. "Is she all right? Is my sister all right?"

"Your sister should be fine. We're moving her to the ICU right now, but she came through the surgery very well. She's a fighter."

"What happened? Why was she in surgery so long? No one has been willing to tell me _anything_ , and I'm her sister! I have a right to know!" She could hear herself getting louder, but she didn't care. It had been _eight hours_ with nothing more than a "they'll be done soon."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. The police were supposed to have briefed you; I don't know what happened on that end. At this point, all I can do is tell you what I do know. If you'll step in here, please?"

She nodded, and bit down on her tongue to avoid saying anything else. It wasn't this man's fault that she'd just spent _eight hours_ going out of her mind. She knew that. Sort of. She took a deep breath, and followed the doctor into small room labeled "Physician's Lounge."

He closed the door behind her. "Right. As I was saying, there was an accident on 395. I don't know the details, but I do know that your sister was hit and lost control of her car. There was a lot of internal damage, but we were able to repair most of it. She's stable, but we're going to keep her in the ICU until she wakes up, just to be sure. Since you weren't here when she was admitted, I have a few questions for you, if you're up to it?"

"Questions? All-all right. What do you need to know?"

He looked at his clipboard, and cleared his throat. "When was your sister's kidney removed?"

Jenny blinked. "Her...kidney? Um, as far as I know, Susan still has everything she's supposed to have."

He frowned, and looked up. "The healing of the associated shrapnel scars led us to believe that the surgery took place roughly a year ago, but we haven't been able to get her medical records yet for confirmation. You weren't aware?"

"I, uh, wasn't speaking with my sister at the time. She was out of the country on work. Wait, did you say shrapnel?"

"Yes, that was one of my other questions. Has your sister ever served in the military?"

"I, no. Susan was a pacifist; no matter how much she's changed, I can't believe she'd join the military. She would have mentioned it." Her earlier observations on her sister's odd behavior hovered just on the edges of her conscious mind, but she pushed them aside ruthlessly. This was Susan she was talking about.

"Are you sure? I'm sorry to push, it's just that her scarring is consistent with a grenade or land mine blast; it's not something we normally see in civilians, at least not here in the states."

Jenny shook her head a touch harder than necessary. That wasn't something she even wanted to consider, no matter what the little voice in the back of her mind said. "I'm sure. Will this affect her recovery?"

He blinked, and seemed to return to the topic at hand. "We're hoping not. If things are still questionable in the morning, we'll keep her in the ICU and start her on temporary dialysis, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. That's all I can tell you at the moment." He stood, and opened the door. "If you'll come with me, I'll have someone show you to your sister's room. In light of the confusion upon your arrival, we've waived visiting hours for you so that you can spend the night. As I said, we'll know more in the morning." He stood, and opened the door, speaking quietly to a woman in the hallway. "Nurse Gentry, if you would?"

Nurse Gentry turned out to be a plump and easily amused woman with a taste for cheesy UFO memorabilia and two sisters. Jenny learned all of this in the time it took them to cross the floor to the ICU ward. While normally the chatty woman might have been an annoyance, Jenny found herself glad of the distraction. When they arrived at Susan's room, Jenny didn't even hear the nurse leave. All of her attention was focused on the body on the bed, a frighteningly pale shell of the sister she had so recently come to know again. Taking a seat, she settled in to sit vigil over her sister. Somewhere after one in the morning, Jenny finally drifted into a restless sleep.

-...-...-

Jenny woke suddenly, and nearly fell out of her chair. Blinking in the low light, she saw a strange man standing on the other side of Susan's bed. There was something odd about him, and it took a moment to place. He was military; she'd seen enough on the metro to know what the uniforms looked like. She shifted, trying to get a better look at him without letting him know she was awake, but her chair scraped against the floor. He turned swiftly, eyes finding hers in the darkened room, and before she realized what was going on he was standing between her and Susan. His voice was scratchy, but that might well have been the hour. "Can I help you?"

She tried desperately not to gape. Was he serious? "Yes, you can help me. You can tell me who you are, and what you're doing here at-" she checked her watch, "four-thirty in the morning."

He seemed to relax, although he didn't move from his position between her and her sister. "Sergeant Eugene Bates, ma'am." He extended a hand, and she narrowed her eyes before deciding that there was no harm in a shake. He had a firm grip, and Jenny had a sinking feeling that she knew where her sister had gotten those calluses, advanced yoga her ass. "I'm going to guess that you're Jenny."

She released his hand and crossed her arms defensively. "That's right. I'm Susan's sister. Care to tell me how _you_ know Susan?"

He shifted awkwardly, and even in the dim room she could tell he was avoiding her gaze. "We...worked together. I like to think we were friends."

Bates, Bates, where had she heard that before? Jenny frowned as something slid into place. "Wait, you said your name is Bates, right? Related to Charlie Bates?" That was the kid's last name. It made sense now, Susan advising a senior at Howard instead of a student from her own university.

He nodded easily, and she could make out a faint smile. "He's my little brother. I asked Susan to keep an eye on him for me when I shipped out." Satisfied about something, he turned and grabbed the other chair in the room, shifting it so that he could brace his feet on the bed and still see the door. "Now, I don't mean to be rude, I just flew a hell of a long way to get here. If you don't mind, I'm going to kick back for a while." He closed his eyes, and settled back in the chair.

Jenny was annoyed; this guy, this _military man_ shows up at her sister's bedside out of nowhere, gives her a bullshit explanation, and then goes to sleep? No way. "Don't you even want to know how she's _doing?_ What happened to her? _Anything?_ Or are you just here for appearances?"

He reached up and scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly. She wondered idly where he'd been stationed, and just how many strings he'd pulled to get back so quickly. "There was a car crash. She broke four ribs and her right arm - they were concerned about nerve damage in the hand - and they removed half her spleen, one lobe of her liver, and about a foot of small intestine." He sighed, and shook his head ruefully. "She never could drive worth a damn." He caught Jenny's gaze. "I miss anything?"

It took Jenny two tries to get her mouth to function properly instead of hanging open. "I, um, no. I mean, they didn't tell me that much; how the hell did you find out?"

He closed his eyes again, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm her next of kin."

Before Jenny could think of a response that wouldn't bring the hospital staff down on them, he started to snore. She settled for waiting until he (or Susan. Preferably Susan) woke up so she could get an answer that made sense. After all, she was the sister, the only living blood relative; didn't that automatically make her next of kin?

-...-...-

Six hours later, Sergeant Bates and Susan were both still asleep, and Jenny was considering asking the hospital staff where the cafeteria was - one could only live on Nutrigrain bars from one's purse for so long, and coffee was beginning to sound like a godsend. Except before she could follow through on her newly conceived plan, the door opened and in walked two men in military uniforms - MP clearly visible on the sleeves. She might be a civilian, but she had a pretty good idea that they weren't there to offer their sympathies.

"Sergeant Eugene Bates?"

The sergeant blinked, and frowned at the MPs. "What's going on?"

"We're taking you in, soldier. Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. It's in your best interests to choose the easy way."

Bates was on his feet in a flash, and he looked mad. "Now wait just a minute here; I filed my paperwork! My CO told me I was free to go!"

MP 1 shook his head. "I'm sorry, sergeant, but that's not what we've been told. According to official report, you have been officially AWOL as of 2200 zulu last night. A JAG officer will meet with you to discuss the specifics ASAP, if you'll come with us?"

"AWOL? But how - that doesn't make sense!"

"Sorry, sergeant. Orders are orders. We're just the messengers." MP 2 threw a meaningful glance at Susan's unconscious form. "Let's go." He nodded to Jenny. "Sorry for the interruption, ma'am."

Jenny was relieved when the sergeant left with no further argument. She didn't know what exactly was going on, but it didn't sound like something she wanted her sister involved in. Or at least, anymore than she already was. Feeling a bit better about things, and not quite sure why, Jenny stood herself and walked out to the nurses' station to find out where she could get a cup of coffee.

-...-...-

Coffee was apparently the magic ingredient in Susan's recovery. Not five minutes after Jenny returned to the room with her paper cup of caffeinated goodness steaming away, Susan's eyelids fluttered and she returned to the land of the conscious. Well, more or less. Jenny set the cup down on the nightstand and clasped her sister's undamaged hand. "Susie?"

It took a long moment for Susan's eyes to focus on her sister. "Jen-jen? What-?" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and Jenny worried that she'd fallen back to sleep.

"Susie?"

"Mmm here." She opened her eyes again, but they were less lucid than they had been the first time. "Anyone get the number of the dart that hit me?"

Jenny frowned, confused, but then realized that her sister wasn't completely awake; there were probably any number of drugs in her system, and Susan had always been sensitive to painkillers. "You were in a car accident, Susie. A bad one." Jenny took a deep, if shaky, breath. "You scared me, Sue. Scared me bad." She squeezed her sister's hand gently, and felt an answering squeeze in return.

"I'm sorry, Jen-jen." Susan giggled and turned her head, dropping her voice to what she must have thought was a conspiratorial whisper. "Gene's gonna be mad. He told me not to drive, said I was shit at it. Don't tell him, kay?"

Gene. Short for Eugene. So the sergeant really had known her sister. Not that she'd doubted it, exactly, not given his claim of being next of kin, but it had all seemed like a bad joke. "I, uh, I won't, Susie." Jenny bit her lip, and debated the ethics of what she was about to do. However, curiosity eventually outweighed her compunctions about questioning her drugged sister. "Um, Susie? Can you tell me how you know Gene?"

"Hmm? Gene? He's nice. Proper. Always brings his people home." Susan's expression saddened, and it took Jenny a moment to realize that 'home' didn't necessarily mean 'alive'. "Was my team leader. Told good jokes, once you got him drunk. Probably still does." Susan's expression softened, and this time when her eyes closed her breathing evened out.

Jenny sighed. "Sleep well, Susie." There would be time enough for questions later.

-...-...-

Half an hour after Susan woke up, the on-shift doctor proclaimed her blood work good enough to avoid temporary dialysis, and she was moved to a standard recovery room. While they wheeled her sister to the new room, Jenny took the opportunity to call in and explain the situation to her boss, requesting a few days off, and professors, explaining that she'd be missing at least one day of classes. When she closed her cell phone, she realized how greasy her hair was, and debated running home for a shower before deciding against it; she could go one more day without being a biohazard.

Taking the stairs, she stepped out onto Susan's new floor just as the elevator chimed an arrival. Glancing at those stepping out in vague curiosity, Jenny did a double take when she recognized Sergeant Bates from that morning, albeit in a different uniform. He was accompanied by a man in a blue jacket - Air Force, maybe? She could never keep the branches straight - and headed for Susan's room. Jenny trailed slowly after, regretting her decision to skip a shower and hot meal as she compared her own state to that of the men in uniform. As she approached the room, she caught a few words of conversation.

"Thank you again, Sir."

"Nothing to it. Just...try not to do it again for a while. It's a pain in the ass to have to straighten things out from halfway around the planet, email or no email. And the lackey who's supposed to handle this with the corps is still on back-order." The man in the blue jacket shook his head. "You guys are going to be the reason I retire, you know. Too much paperwork."

"We all appreciate it, Sir. If we...if we ever go back, I'm sure there will be a place for you."

"Well, you never know. Danny boy just might force the issue on that one." Blue jacket squeezed Bates' shoulder. "Take all the time you need, Sergeant. We look after our own."

"Thank you, General." Bates' voice was hushed, but the words were clear. He moved to sit next to the bed, and the general ( _General?_ Her sister's friend knew a general?) turned to leave. After a brief moment's thought, she moved to follow; if anyone was going to be able to give her answers, it would be a general.

She caught him just as he reached the elevators. "Sir?"

The man turned, and as she approached she could read the name "O'Neill" on his uniform. "Me?"

She nodded. "My name is Jenny Kempers. I wanted to ask, did you know my sister?"

General O'Neill shook his head. "Doctor Kempers? By reputation only, I'm afraid. She worked with a close friend of mine for several years." The elevator chimed, and the doors opened. He gave a put upon sigh and stepped inside. "Much as I would like to continue this, I'm already late for a meeting. If you'll excuse me?" He gave her a little wave, and pressed the button for the lobby.

"Wait, I wanted to know..." Jenny found herself speaking to the closing doors, and allowed the thought to trail off. So much for getting anything useful from the general. With a sigh, she turned and headed back to her sister's room to grill Bates. She was getting sick of everyone knowing things that she didn't, from the doctor to the soldier to the general. She was Susan's _sister_ , damn it. These should be things she knew.

What she found when she reached the room, however, stopped her internal rant cold. Bates was sitting at Susan's bedside, cradling her hand within his and speaking softly. It was more the action of a lover than a casual friend, and Jenny paused outside the door, straining to hear what was being said. It wasn't what she had expected; what it was, was a little bit heartbreaking.

"Hey there, brown eyes. I hear you got yourself in some trouble."

"You weren't there to save me."

"If you'll recall, I did tell you not to drive around here. You were bad enough in a jumper, and it had an auto-pilot. Although I wouldn't put it past the Trust to attempt an assassination..."

Susan's good hand reached up and hit Bates on the arm. "You always think that. Every time I got food poisoning, it was an assassination attempt."

"In my own defense, two of them were assassination attempts." There was a pause, followed by quiet laughter and a moan of discomfort. "Hey, hey. You know better than that. Shallow breaths."

After a few moments of silence, Jenny debated entering, but her sister spoke again and she stayed where she was. "How much trouble did you get in for coming?"

"No trouble, Sue."

"One of the nurses said there were MPs, Gene."

"Nothing General O'Neill couldn't straighten out. Nothing for you to worry about, although I have to go back in a few days. You know how it goes."

"Yeah, I do. I...Thank you for coming, Gene. It means a lot, not waking up to a stranger." A stranger. Was that how Susan saw her? Jenny bit her lip, bits and pieces slipping together to form an unhappy reality. She would never know her sister. Not like she had before. She felt something on her cheek, and reached up only to discover tear tracks. She hadn't realized that she'd started to cry, but then she hadn't realized a lot of things.

"You're my team; couldn't very well leave you to fend on your own, could I?"

Jenny tried to tell herself that it was just stress - the terror, followed by endless waiting and hoping - brewing a chemical and hormonal cocktail that had thrown her common sense out the window. She tried to, but deep down she couldn't make herself believe it. Because it had been _four months_ , and her sister had never once spoken to her with the quiet affection that she held for this stranger. Four months of slowly dropping grades in Jenny's classes, sleepless nights of her own worrying about what Susan wasn't telling her, and fewer and fewer nights out with friends as she focused more of her energy on Susan. And all for what?

For not enough, was the bottom line. She loved her sister, loved her dearly, but that wasn't enough to justify throwing her future away. She just, she couldn't...

Taking a deep breath, Jenny made the hardest decision of her life.

She walked away.


	3. Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This segment takes place well before the repeal of DADT, and it's important to note that a CO always has/had the option of deciding whether to further a complaint regarding the policy or dismiss it.

Jack O'Neill was starting to hate his email. No, scratch that. Jack had always hated his email. He was just starting to hate it more. When most people received a new message, their computers _beeped_. When a smaller, more unfortunate, portion of the population received a new message, a generic male voice said "You've got mail!"

Jack O'Neill was not that lucky. No, he had friends (strike that) tormentors (strike that) malicious subordinates with disgustingly effective computer hacking skills and horrid taste in pop culture. His computer not only played customized sound clips when he received a new message, but they varied depending on which folder the arriving email was filtered into. It was awful.

Although he had to admit, there was something fitting about having the "Imperial March" play every time he received a note from the IOA. That wasn't the sound clip that bothered him. It wasn't even that the "Wormhole X-Treme" theme played whenever he got an email from SG-1 (although someday, he was seriously going to kill Carter for this). It was the "Atlantis" folder that bothered him. The folder that played the "Charge" fanfare every single time he got notification that an Atlantis veteran had been logged into a medical or judicial computer system. Daniel had muttered something about it being only fitting, but Jack didn't see the humor. Watching out for the Atlantis kids was an obligation, and had absolutely nothing to do with needing to occasionally bang heads in the name of righteousness and adjustment disorders. It wasn't like anyone else was going to look out for them.

Thus, when the well-known fanfare came blasting out of his speakers, he gave serious thought to throwing his laptop out the window. Only two things stopped him. The first was that Carter would just reprogram any new issue with the same damned defaults. The second was that he didn't actually have a window in his office at the Pentagon; in that way, it was strangely similar to being at the SGC.

Resigned to his fate, Jack clicked on the new message, and prepared to be amazed with the newest misadventures of the formerly-Atlantis-based military personnel. He wasn't disappointed.

**2 Judicial System entries match notification criteria**

Kitterman, Saul J. Lieutenant First Class (USAF). Stationed: Okinawa.

 **Charges:** Violation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell regulations

Wolinsky, Christopher T. Gunnery Sergeant (USMC). Stationed: Seoul.

 **Charges:** Violation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell regulations.

**1 Medical System entry matches notification criteria**

Wolinsky, Christopher T. Gunnery Sergeant (USMC). Stationed: Seoul.

 **Nature of Entry:** Cranial Trauma. Spiral Fracture of the Tibia  & Fibula, Left Leg

Jack groaned, and reached for the phone sitting on the far corner of his desk. It was going to be a long day.

-...-...-

Three hours later, Jack had a better idea of what was going on, and the beginnings of an absolutely stellar migraine. This was the fourth time in six months that he'd been notified of Don't Ask, Don't Tell violations by Atlantis veterans. It was the third time that he knew for a fact one of those being charged was straight. He could sympathize with both sides of the mess, to a degree. It wasn't normal to have someone of the same gender, whose only connection to you was that they happened to have been assigned to your last posting, listed as Next-of-Kin. Especially not someone in another branch of the military, or when there were living relatives. Depending on how the AE vets phrased their leave requests, any number of things could be inferred. There were certain things you _just didn't do_ in this man's Marine Corps.

At the same time, if it were Daniel or Sam who'd been injured, Jack knew that he'd pull every string he could to hop the next flight out. But the Atlantis vets as a group took it a few steps further, and it was putting them dangerously close to serious repercussions. Like Lt. Kitterman, who'd filed a request for compassion leave following the injury of one of his former team members, but referenced only his position as next-of-kin and his 'responsibility' for the gunny, a man seven years his senior. The boy was damn lucky he wasn't being brought up on charges for going AWOL in addition to the investigation opened by Wolinsky's CO.

Another two hours, six emails, and four aspirin later, Jack had things taken care of, and just in time. Moments after clicking 'send' on the last email, the Imperial March began to blare from his speakers. He was behind on his revisions of the current resolution regarding Human-Asgard Relations. Again. There were days that he hated being one of the most influential men in the United States. A lot of them.

Needing something to keep his mind off of the weasels in business suits who called themselves politicians, Jack instead pulled up a blank word document and began drafting a note to be placed in the files of all military personnel who had served on Atlantis. He was getting sick of having to deal with these little problems every few days, and it would be nice to be _proactive_ for once, instead of merely handling the damage control. He might not be able to fix everything, but he could certainly insure that the Don't Ask allegations ceased. He had a sneaking suspicion that the allegations were being filed out of spite because the Atlantis vets weren't playing well with others just as frequently as the vets themselves were doing anything questionable. There were perks to being a general, and he had a feeling that these men and women were dealing with enough as it was.


	4. NCIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story Caveats: Mild slash, Gibbs/DiNozzo (NCIS)

"I need to speak to a Lieutenant Laura Cadman."

Tony hated desk duty. Hated it with a passion. Hated being stuck in, even though he knew he was freeing up the rest of the team for legwork. Hated the injury that had him tied to the desk for the next week. Hated the fact that this was his sixth phone call, and he still hadn't been able to track down Staff Sergeant Atkins' former CO. The marine had died in a training accident, ten weeks after transferring to the Warfighting Laboratory at Quantico, and Gibbs wanted background. What Gibbs wanted, Gibbs got.

Tony sat up straighter, and clicked open his pen as the person on the other end of the line returned; something in the tone was different, promising. "Oh really? Cheyenne Mountain? Do you have a number?" He jotted down the digits, then read them back. "Thank you. Thank you very much." He dialed the new number, and repeated his query. "This is Agent DiNozzo, NCIS. I need to speak to Lieutenant Laura Cadman."

"One moment." Tony settled back into his chair again, absently doodling on the pad sitting on his desk.

There was a clicking sound on the phone, and a new voice came on. "Agent DiNozzo?"

"Yes?"

"I understand you're trying to contact Lieutenant Laura Cadman, is that correct?"

"Yeah, that's right. I called McMurdo, and they gave me your number. Who am I talking to?"

"Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman. McMurdo, ah, of course. Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, sir, but Lieutenant Cadman is currently MIA."

Tony blinked; that wasn't at all what he'd been expecting, although it certainly explained the run-around. "I'm sorry, did you say MIA? As in, Missing In Action?"

"Yes, sir."

"But she was stationed to _Antarctica._ "

"Yes, sir."

"What happened, she fall into a crevasse?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

"Not at liberty to-You know what? I don't want to know. What about her CO last year?"

There was a pause, and Tony could hear typing in the background. "That would be Major Evan Lorne."

Tony clicked on the relevant link in Cadman's online personnel brief. "Major Evan Lorne. Right. Where's he currently stationed?"

"Unfortunately, the major is also listed as being Missing In Action."

"You don't say. What's his excuse, bludgeoned to death by penguins?"

"I'm _really_ not at liberty to say, sir."

Tony sighed, and scanned the major's short-file on his computer. "OK, Antarctica's a small base. What about Lorne's CO? I have a Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard?" He squinted at the screen, but no, the writing didn't change. Air Force, both of them. That was, well, _odd._

"I, uh..." There was a muffled choking sound, and Tony could hear shouting in the background. Something about a General O'Neill. Before Tony could ask, however, the chief was back on the line. "Colonel Sheppard? I'm, I'm not sure that would be such a good idea, sir."

"Let me guess, he's MIA, too."

"No, no. Colonel Sheppard's just AWOL, sir."

Tony blinked. "AWOL. As in, ran off into the snow in an attempt to seek vengeance for the death of his 2IC at the hands of rabid penguins?"

"No, that was Leftenant Carmichael and Doctor Karkarova. Colonel Sheppard, well... It's a long story." Tony heard a siren go off in the background, followed by more shouting. "I'm very sorry, sir. Please feel free to call if you have any other questions." There was a click, and Tony was left staring at the phone. Great. He punched in another number from memory.

"Yeah, Gibbs."

"Atkins' COs? MIA. Every last one. Well, unless you count the one that's AWOL. Got bounced all over the place, before some guy at Cheyenne Mountain was even able to tell me that much."

Tony could hear the frown through the phone. "I thought his last posting was in Antarctica?"

"It was. You get anything from the interviews?"

"According to his current CO, there's something 'not quite right about those damn Antarctic boys', but he didn't elaborate. The best friend's giving off more mixed signals than the Andrews Control Tower, but I can't figure out what they mean. I've got Ziva and McGee out looking over the incident site again. You follow up on that unidentified number out in California?"

"Not yet."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Call me when you do. And check with Abby, see if she's got the results of the tox-screen back."

"On it, Boss." Tony set the phone down, and began hunting around for the list of phone numbers again. God, he missed schlepping around a swamp in the middle of a thunderstorm. Well, that might be stretching it, but it was close. It seemed to be getting closer every time he picked up the phone.

-...-...-

"Yeah, Gibbs."

"So I checked out the number, turns out its his shrink. A Dr. Katherine Heightmeyer, specializes in Combat Fatigue and stress management disorders. She's not taking new patients, I asked."

"Very funny, DiNozzo."

"Well, I thought so. Oh, you were right about something being off about Atkins; the guy's got a bunch of scars that don't match his medical record, and I'm talking nasty stuff - electrical burns, a couple of stab wounds, and a GSW. Nothing since the new posting, but also nothing over two years old. Ducky's having a field day, said he'll call you direct once he's finished cataloging it all."

"Anything else?"

"Abby found a foreign chemical in his system. Some kind of neurotransmitter. I didn't catch the details, but it's not matching anything in the database. It's driving her nuts."

"I'll bet it is. Right now, I need to you track down a Staff Sergeant Eugene Bates for me. The best friend mentioned him as a CO, but he's not on either of their records - I want to know who he is, and where they worked together. And I want you to pull the paperwork on Atkins' benefits, see if the wife is getting anything we didn't already know about."

"Why? It was a training accident, right?"

"Just do it. There's something else going on here, and the sooner we get it sorted out, the better."

"On it, Boss." There was a distinctive click, and Tony hung up. Twenty minutes later, he had the details of Atkins' death benefits, and not much else. As he leaned down to pull something out of one of his drawers, he heard someone clear their throat.

"Agent DiNozzo?"

Tony looked up warily, and found himself facing an Air Force officer. No, make than an Air Force _General_. Two stars. One more point to Gibbs' gut, there was definitely something strange going on. "Yes..."

"I'm Major General Jack O'Neill. I need all of your files on the death of Staff Sergeant Atkins, and I need them now."

Tony blinked, and pushed away from his desk, standing up. "Now wait just a minute-"

"Did I give you the impression that I was asking?" Tony's phone rang, and he looked down to see the lab extension flashing on the caller ID. The general must have sent somebody down to collect the data from Abby. Tony could see where this was going, and he didn't like it.

"And did I give you the impression I took orders from the Air Force?" Tony carefully slid his cell phone out of his pocket, flipped it open and sent Gibbs a 911 text message; he could only hope that his boss would get the point. There was only so far you could push some of this political bullshit, and he knew he was already treading on thin ice, but something about this felt _wrong_. "It's called NCIS for a reason, you know. _Naval_ Criminal Investigative Service."

"You do now, at least in this case. Air Force and Navy are both DOD, and the Joint Chiefs have given me discretionary jurisdiction over the incident."

Tony blinked. "You're kidding, right? Since when does the Air Force care about a Marine Corps staff sergeant."

"That's classified."

"I'll bet." Tony was saved from doing something really stupid by the ringing of his cell phone. The caller ID read Gibbs, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. So totally _not his problem_ anymore. Thank God. Shooting the general a carefully apologetic look, and promptly turning his back, Tony flipped open the phone. "DiNozzo."

"What's going on? Abby called, said something about someone taking her evidence, and my reception cut out. Then I got your message."

"Well, Boss, I've got an Air Force General here who seems to think that he's taking over our case."

There was a pause, and Tony began a silent countdown. "Put him on the line."

Tony turned back to the general, and held out the cell phone. "My boss. You want anything from me, you convince him, first. That's how we work here."

The general gave him a long look, then took the phone. "This is Major General Jack O'Neill." He turned, walking to the end of the aisle. "I'm sorry, that's classified. No, that's not going to happen. I report directly to the Joint Chiefs. Yes, that's right." There was a pause, and Tony didn't even bother to pretend he wasn't paying attention; it wasn't his fault the general thought he was out of earshot. "I appreciate that. I, yes. I think I can swing that. No. Look, this is personal for me. No, I can't elaborate. I don't have to explain myself to you, but I give you my word - it'll be taken care of. Right." The general walked back to Tony's desk, and held out the phone. "Talk."

"Boss?"

"Give him what he wants, DiNozzo."

Tony resisted the urge to pout. Barely. It was never as effective on the phone, not that it actually worked on Gibbs. "Yes, Boss." He hung up, and put on his most saccharine smile. "So, General O'Neill, what can I do for you?"

"Well, the first thing you can do is call down to the lab and tell your analyst to un-lose her samples."

"Ah, yeah, about that..."

-...-...-

As had become habit, Tony stopped by the kitchen for a beer on his way to the basement. He considered it telling that Gibbs had started stocking his favorite brand, but like everything else about their relationship, he was careful not to read too much into the action. Bottle in hand, he descended into the workroom. Gibbs was kneeling, running his hands over one of the supports and doing, well, something. Tony wasn't always sure what it was Gibbs was looking at/for when working on the boat, but he knew if he asked, Gibbs would tell him. It was enough to know that the offer stood.

"Spit it out."

Tony startled, and took the last few steps down to sit on the lower landing. "Did anything about today's case seem strange to you?"

Gibbs shifted, and turned to look at Tony. "Strange is relative."

Tony took a long sip of his beer. "Oh, I don't know. The fact that the Military Appropriations Committee's pet general showed up out of the blue and confiscated all of our case notes? Or maybe the fact that the Joint Chiefs _backed him up._ "

Gibbs stood, and picked up a glass of amber liquid on his way over to the stairs. "Tony. Let it go."

"But Boss..."

"Leave it." Gibbs' tone was sharp, and Tony looked away, concentrating instead on peeling away the label on his beer. After a moment, Gibbs sighed and took a long sip of his drink. Bourbon, by the smell. "Let me ask you something. You've been at NCIS a while now. Under what circumstances would survivor's benefits be denied to a widow?"

Tony paused in his destruction of the label, thinking through the options. "Wait, he was a suicide?"

Gibbs shrugged, and drained the rest of his glass. "Sometimes, it's better not to look too hard at things."

"That was why you asked about the wife. You knew, didn't you?"

Gibbs stood, ignoring the question. "Let's get some sleep. It's been a long day."

Tony frowned, but followed as Gibbs led the way up the stairs, killing the power when they reached the door. It wasn't until they'd reached the kitchen that he spoke again, folding his arms gently around the older man's waist. "He agreed to rule it accidental if you turned it over, didn't he."

Gibbs stilled, then set his glass down on the counter. "Atkins married her because of the child, and then couldn't see a way out. I don't approve of the choice, but no child should have to grow up knowing they caused their father's death. O'Neill agreed."

Tony opened his mouth to ask, but thought better of it. Gibbs was right, there were some things it was better not to know. And sometimes, you just had to let them go.


	5. David Kleinman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This segment focuses on former-Captain David Kleinman, one of the conn officer/pilots assigned to the _Daedalus_ who has appeared in both season 2 and season 3 of SGA. He's a secondary character, not an OMC.

The day his assignment to the _U.S.A.F Apollo_ came through, Captain-now-Major David Kleinman should have been thrilled. Not only was he going to be the primary pilot on the newest X-303 in the fleet, but he got a promotion in the bargain. Everything a rising young officer could want.

The problem was, Dave knew exactly who (and what) had paid for his promotion, and it didn't sit well. He didn't like the feeling that he was being bought off, trading silence for a chance at starting over because the colonel had put in a few good words on his way out the door. It was only marginally more tolerable after the fifth of Jack he bought to celebrate, but at least the hangover the next morning kept him from thinking for a while. He understood about following orders, and how responsibility to the decisions made following the replicator attack of Atlantis had lain with General Landry and General O'Neill. The chain of command existed for a reason, and questioning it in the midst of a tactical nightmare was a good way of getting a lot of your friends killed. That being said, it hadn't been General Landry's finger on the missile controls when they'd arrived in orbit above Atlantis. The general hadn't been the one who nearly obliterated a city housing thousands of civilians, most of whom were fucking refugees. Dave had heard the communication from Weir, the explanation and offer for peaceful settlement. And then he'd attempted to beam a nuclear bomb into the city, because those were his orders and they had no way of knowing if she was the real Dr. Weir or a Replicator version.

The attempt hadn't succeeded, but that didn't make the fact that he'd pushed the button any less real, or the intended consequences any less horrifying after he'd learned exactly how many people were in the city.

When you worked with the Stargate program, whether you were a member of a gate team, serving on one of the space-capable vessels, or stationed off-world, there were certain survival skills you picked up. The most important was that anything you walked away from could have been worse, and Dave knew it was true. Space was not the kind and gentle mistress Star Trek made her out to be, and he'd lost friends to everything from the routine to the bizarre - accidental or intentional, dead was still dead. Four years with the program, and he'd walked away from a lot. He'd flown X-302's and 303's, watched friends turn into fireballs and be tossed about their frail cockpits like stringless marionettes, and participated in more rescue missions than he could count. Some had been more successful than others, and everyone grew wise when it came to the art of ignorance. Often, it was better not to number the dead; leave that to the bureaucrats and the brass.

It was easy to say that he'd seen it all, shrugged it all off, and that he'd grown the thicker skin so endemic to the ranks of the SGC. That's what he told the shrinks, and it seemed to work well enough to keep him flying. With Atlantis going rogue, everyone had bigger problems than a pilot with a solid track record and no indications of instability. As long as his problems, such as they were, didn't interfere with his job, no one cared. What was one more questionable incident in a history of many?

The problem came when his lingering fixation _did_ begin to interfere. It was stupid, really, because the bomb had never been dropped. Nobody had died, that day in Pegasus, and they'd spent a week rendering humanitarian aid to the newly established "Alliance" before returning to Earth with the bad news. Even if the attack had worked, it wouldn't have been the first time he'd been instrumental in tactical action. He wasn't the formal tactical officer, but everyone who worked the bridge of an X-303 was cross-trained. That might well have been what bothered him the most - that he couldn't figure out why the incident had bothered him so much, but bother him it did.

Dave appreciated Colonel Caldwell's consideration, putting in a recommendation that Dave be given the first pilot's berth on the Apollo. The new ship was just different enough that, for a time, he was able to put Atlantis behind him. Two months into his tour with the Apollo, however, he woke in a cold sweat with mushroom clouds behind his eyes. The CMO hadn't even asked for details, passing over a packet of sleeping pills and a request that Dave keep him apprised of any changes. They worked, and again Dave told himself that it was ridiculous and he just needed to move on.

Unfortunately, the sleeping pills only worked for so long, and their effect was limited. Even once he stopped dropping off immediately, they still got him there within the hour. The problem was that he couldn't sleep away all of his downtime, and the traditional passtimes didn't hold the appeal they once had. Everything gave him a little too much time to think, or was too hard to focus on. He'd sit down to play a few hands in the officer's lounge and lose track of what they were playing, distracted by an attempt to calculate just how much force one of the transparent "windows" could hold up to before buckling. Or he'd forget who'd bet what, who was still playing, even occasionally when a hand had ended. It didn't take long for the casual invites to poker night to dry up, crewmates very carefully not concerned about him because as he liked to point out, _he was fine._

He just couldn't seem to keep himself occupied. He had already increased his time in the gym; that had been his first step in attempting to deal with the dreams and insomnia. Running was a dangerous time waster, because it allowed his thoughts to drift. They never drifted anywhere pleasant, and there was only so hard he could push himself. Weights were some better, requiring concentration and inconsistent exertion, but when the sleeplessness was at its worst he couldn't risk an accident with the free weights. After he accidentally nailed Sergeant Rodriguez sparring, even that was touch and go. That was the problem with being on a new ship - back on the _Daedalus_ , he'd had friends. On the _Apollo_ it was everyone for him or herself, those bonds hadn't formed yet, and everyone was giving Dave a wide berth on the social front due to the rumors about that last trip to Atlantis. Caldwell's report or not, there were a lot of whispers about who had done what during that week in Pegasus, and the handful of _Daedalus_ crewmen who'd transferred all faced a cold shoulder from those coming out of the SGC who thought they'd been playing hooky when it came to the fight against the Ori. Late at night, Dave considered tracking down one of the others who'd come over from the _Daedalus_ , but he always chickened out. The last thing he needed was someone confirming that he really was fucked in the head.

By the time his six-month leave came around, Dave was jittery whenever he wasn't at his post. He tried working out more, took to doing laps of the primary passenger deck in the middle of the night when the insomnia got to be too bad, even joined the hand-to-hand classes the marines held for the sheer amusement of knocking Air Force guys down a few pegs. He even cut down on the coffee, scaling back to two cups a day, and then just the one cup. Nothing worked for long. The only solution seemed to be time at the helm, somewhere he knew that people were watching and cared what he did, and there was only so much of that he could wrangle - even pulling rank only landed so many shifts. He knew why the shift limits were in place, and objectively he could agree that they made sense, but he _needed_ the distraction, the focus.

It was bad enough that one of the first things he did on leave was something he'd sworn not to do - see a shrink. He was smart about it, waiting until he'd gotten to San Francisco and checked into his hotel before making use of one of the computers in the lobby to track down someone who fit his needs. Most importantly, he needed a psychiatrist, not a psychologist. He had two weeks, that wasn't enough time to do the "talk about your feelings" crap. He didn't need to talk, he just needed the damn tension to _go away_. If he talked to Major Wilson, he's be grounded before he got ten words into the conversation, and that was the last thing he needed. What he needed was a stranger, someone he could explain the basic problem to and get something to make it better, just to hold him over until whatever it was worked through his system and he was back to normal.

Explaining his situation, walking that fine line between giving just enough information to get what he needed without sharing enough to cause problems, was more difficult than he'd expected. By the time he returned to the SGC, he had a three month supply of Xanax, with a follow-up appointment scheduled with Dr. Menaster which he had to attend before he could get a refill (and which he had no intention of needing).

Good intentions or not, Dave was back three months later. The Xanax helped, had been helping before he'd ever gone back to the SGC, but it didn't do _enough_. He was fine, when he was at the helm. He was decent - not fine, but not dysfunctional - when he was helping out down in Engineering, learning to do progressively more complicated maintenance on the ship he had once piloted without thought to the complexity of its upkeep. But despite the complaints of the non-comms, there wasn't _always_ something that needed doing, and he couldn't tolerate the free time. Nominally, he was fourth in the chain of command in case of emergency; functionally, he would be commanding this ship right around the time it crashed into the scrap heap. While he could possibly have pushed to sit the third watch more often than his current twice a week, there was a limit to how much attention he wanted to draw to himself.

The problem with not actually being able to tell Dr. Menaster anything that wasn't buried four coats of semi-matte gloss was that it meant that the man made absolutely useless suggestions. The most glaring example being the thought that Dave should consider a change of career; Dave had laughed in his face (and promptly apologized). He could certainly put in for a transfer when his tour on the _Apollo_ ended, but what good could it possibly do? The only place he wasn't having problems was when he was haunting the bridge, whatever the fuck was wrong with him could only get worse if he got himself grounded. Added to that was the fact that if not him, then who? The program needed people like him, people who'd seen just what the brass was capable of and what the universe could throw at you. People who were already just that little bit broken, because there was no point making someone else live through the things he'd seen if he could still do the job. And Caldwell had fallen on his sword for them, making sure to get anyone who needed off the Daedalus out before the disciplinary board had grounded his ass like a hunk of enriched uranium. Dave couldn't just throw that kind of sacrifice away, whether or not it had been the honorable thing for a CO to do - the mess hadn't been Caldwell's fault, either.

In short, there was no way to explain his situation to a civilian, so he didn't bother to try. If things had been different, he might have taken the advice and sought a change of scenery. As it was, he picked up a second prescription to go with the first and caught the next flight back to Colorado Springs. It wasn't an ideal situation, but there was something to be said for the best of bad options. He was still functional, and he'd keep doing whatever he had to in order to stay functional until they grounded him. It was the least he could do, after all; his father had always told him to pay his debts.


	6. Nurse Marjorie Chapel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering, Nurse Chapel is indeed an OFC as opposed to a single-appearance canon character. This part, like section 2, required a true outsider perspective.

Marjorie had been working inpatient wards for the better part of twenty years when she got the job with the VHA. The pay wasn't great, but it was regular hours and the retirement benefits were better than the last two jobs she'd held (and with things in the Middle East unlikely to cool down any time soon, it was also the most stable job she was ever going to find. No budget cutbacks likely in the military wards, that was for damn sure). Originally, she applied to work an infusion team in the main Denver facility, but they offered her a twenty thousand dollar signing bonus if she'd agree to work at the Secondary Inpatient Psychiatric facility. Despite her dislike of the psych wards, she hadn't been able to turn down that kind of money, even if it came with a two year minimum commitment and a stack of forms half a foot deep explaining what would happen if she repeated anything the patients said in her proximity. She made a good faith effort at reading through the fine print, but after three pages she gave up and just signed at the X. Twenty grand was a lot of money, and she could really use a new car.

The first few weeks were exactly like she expected, getting to know the staff and slowly learning the little bits of routine that were unique to each long-term inpatient ward. Then she started getting to know the patients, and she began to understand just how unusual the SIP ward really was.

For one thing, unlike the rest of the VHA facilities in the Denver complex, the SIP ward was a mix of military and civilian. Majors and sergeants rubbed shoulders with botanists and archeologists, all without the usual friction that came from throwing such different social spheres into close proximity. Marjorie's father had been in the military, thirty years served before retiring a colonel, and while he'd tolerated civilian professionals, he'd had no love for them. But there was no such segregation in the SIP ward, not in the cafeteria that served the patients and not in the rec areas where those not confined to their rooms mingled and watched television. The segregation that did occur seemed to be related to where the patients had been assigned, and even then it wasn't an overt split.

In her initial training for the SIP ward, Marjorie had learned that to become a patient there someone had to have been associated with one of two classified projects. Some of them had worked at the Cheyenne Mountain facility, down in Colorado Springs, and the rest on some classified research base code named "Atlantis." The few exceptions had worked on a third, affiliated, research project down in Antarctica and snapped due to the cold and the dark. Of the three projects, it was the patients from Atlantis who most separated themselves from the larger group. They weren't adversarial, they were just that extra bit withdrawn.

One thing that all of the patients had in common was their amusement with her name, which got old fast. Every time she introduced herself as Nurse Chapel, anyone who happened to be in the vicinity would start snickering. It wasn't until she met Dr. Kate Heightmeyer, a specialist who flew in every other week to work with some of the more troubled patients, that she finally got an explanation. Kate had laughed at their introduction, followed immediately by an apology and the much desired explanation. While Marjorie had been told on occasion that she had a namesake in the original _Star Trek_ series, she'd never bothered to hunt the series down or commit the trivial fact to memory. Apparently everyone in the SIP ward had a better-than-average knowledge of _Star Trek, Wormhole X-Treme_ , and just about anything else that classed as science fiction of a questionable nature. Marjorie eventually put it down to one of those things that only half made sense (there were plenty of them around the SIP ward) and smiled along whenever her name was broadcast over the loudspeaker.

Another oddity was the low incidence of drug therapy amongst the patients. The majority received no treatment outside of individual and group counseling. There were two constants for those on a medication schedule. First was that they were part of a clinical trial, either for PTSD or a related anxiety disorder. The other was that they all had family "on the outside." Marjorie had been shocked to realize just how many of the members of the ward, especially those in the "Atlantis" group, had next of kin whose relationship was listed as "coworker" or "teammate" or "friend." The only siblings and parents seemed to be amongst those who'd worked at Cheyenne Mountain, and those patients were the ones aggressively pursuing discharge.

The more she learned about the patients, the more the dynamics made sense and the more her heart went out to them. Whomever had staffed the "Atlantis" project had clearly sought out loners, people that no one would miss, and they'd succeeded. The only visitors the "Atlantis" patients had were friends and professional colleagues, never family. Even those out of Cheyenne Mountain who had family often refused to contact them, and Marjorie wished that she didn't understand their motives. According to the staff rumor mill, most of the patients in the SIP ward were there for the long haul. You didn't land there unless you had severe adjustment issues that made you unable to function in normal society, and while Marjorie had only seen hints of the problems listed on the charts, she knew that behavior inside a controlled environment was often very different than behavior in the general population.

All of the patient files, even those for the civilians, were red-flagged for "Risk of Violence." SOP in the ward was to call security if a problem ever arose, but in six months she'd never once had to call in security. There had been a dozen almost-incidents, but the other patients always intervened before things got out of control. They'd only had to sedate a patient once, and that had been when a letter arrived informing Dr. Coleman of her mother's death. The woman had been inconsolable for days, curled up in bed and refusing to leave her room. Marjorie couldn't blame her for lashing out, even if it had taken a week for the bruise to fade. Considering the notes in Coleman's file, Marjorie had gotten off lucky - Coleman could easily have killed her.

As time passed, Marjorie settled more deeply into the routines of the SIP ward. In many ways, she became a part of the insular culture that the patients had developed to cope with their isolation, incorporated into their "us" instead of part of the "them" beyond the building's walls. She knew she was lucky - she worked days, only covering the occasional night shift in a pinch, and the nights were when the rough patches came bubbling to the surface in the SIP ward. Almost all of the patients suffered nightmares, the kind that left echoes in the halls for hours after the dreamer woke, and more than one nurse had been injured trying to wake a troubled sleeper. Night brought the demons out, from the insomniacs to the caged violence that almost never manifested during the daylight hours. No matter how functional they appeared, each and every one of the residents of the SIP ward had their monsters, the kind better off caged than free.

By the time her two years were up, Marjorie didn't even have to think about whether or not to renew her contract. After taking the job, she'd asked her supervisor about the two year mandate, hoping to find out how often the staff turned over. Most psychiatric units had higher than normal turnover, and she couldn't believe that the staff lasted much over their required minimum, or there'd never have been such a generous signing bonus. To her surprise, she was informed that turnover was almost nil, only two staff members leaving in the last five years and both for reasons unrelated to the job. As she made the trip down to the HR office in the main facility, seeing the large and impersonal space for the first time since taking the position in the SIP ward, Marjorie finally realized why it was that the turnover was so low. SIP ward wasn't just an inpatient care unit, it was a home for those who no longer fit the world outside their door. She didn't know how or why they'd been changed, and two years into her position in the ward she had a feeling that she'd never know the half of it, but they weren't the men and women they'd been when they signed onto whatever projects had spat them back out, mishapen and maladjusted.

This time, when presented with the ream and a half of paperwork that went with her position, she didn't bother to page through it at all. Instead, she flipped to the last page and signed her name with a flourish. Some things you just did because they were right.

~ Finis ~

[End Primary Story Collection]


End file.
